Development And Implementation Of An Online Booking System For FastDrivers

Justifications for the System

FastDrivers is a company that offers driving lessons to its customers in the state of NSW. It has undertaken a project to develop and implement an online booking website for its customers. The website must enable the customers to book driving lessons schedule from web and from mobile devices.

The system must provide user friendly interfaces to the customers and must be able to collect details from the customers, help them to book a convenient driving lesson schedule, finding instructor for the scheduled lessons, tracking payments etc.

The aim of the report is to provide information about the design of the system, cost and schedule analysis of the project, and other relevant information to the management of the FastDrivers so that they can take final decision about the proposed information system and the project. In the following sections of the report, there are discussions on the justification of the system, business case, the benefits of the proposed system, project scope, cost and schedule analysis, functions of the proposed system, TCO, and various architectural and behavioral system designs including context diagram, level 0 data flow diagram, entity relationship diagram, and wireframes of three screen interfaces.

Information systems have become a necessity for modern businesses. To leverage the benefits of e-businesses, online platforms, and mobile commerce, FastDrivers must implement the proposed information system. The justifications to undertake the project on developing and implementing the proposed information system are,

• It will help the business to align the business process with information technology. The centralized data collection and business management process will help to integrate all sub processes of the business and all business activities. That will increase the visibility of the business records, accuracy of the records and will accelerate the business processes.
• The business operated in NSW. The online platform will help them to reach to their targeted customers faster. There are various online channels for marketing and business promotions. For examples, social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. will help them to reach to their customers’ faster, conversion of a visitor into a customer faster, and to promote the business using various promotions, advertisements etc.
• The online platform will help them to offer better support for the customers. They can implement a dedicated module to help customers in assisting the registration process, payment, general queries and questions.
• Even though the initial investment in the information system development project is high, but considering the monetary equivalent of the tangible and intangible benefits from the project in long term will help the business to make more profit.
• The system will help them to reduce their operational cost by automating various business process. At the same time it will help to reduce the manpower required to run the business and many other related operational cost.
• It will help to improve the business process by reducing the human errors for data entry, data duplication, data inconsistency and so on. It will save time and improve the overall productivity.
• The information system will help to improve the communication with the customers, the instructors and the management.
• The system will be scalable and as the business grows with time, the system can be extended to support the changes in the business processes due to the business growth.
• It will help in better decision making based on data processed by the system. Well-informed decision making will help to stay ahead of the competitors in the market and to grow the business faster (Dennis, et al., 2014).
• All business data will be organized, stored, and processed in a centralized information system. That will help to generate various reports to understand the profitability of the business at any point of time.

The business case have been presented in the following table.

Project Name	Development and Implementation of an Online Booking System for FastDrivers.
Project Sponsor	FastDrivers
Project Manager	<Student Name>
Project Approval Status and Date	Approved
Latest Revision Date
Contribution to business strategies	The proposed information system is aimed at streamlining the driving lesson booking systems online. It will help the customers to book lessons from web and their mobile devices, schedule a convenient time for the lesson by checking the availability of the instructors, accepting payments from the customers and maintaining a database of the registered customers and their activities. Thus the information system will be aligned with the core business strategies of the business.
Various Options Considered	Following options were available for the project. · Hiring IT professional and run it as in-house project. · Purchasing and configuring a booking system from a vendor. · Outsourcing the project to external consultancy (selected)
Benefits	Some of the direct benefits of the project are, · Increased sales and revenue generation. · Better customer service. · Faster and improved business processes. · Data driven business decision making
Timescales	302 days from Tue 5/15/18 to Wed 7/10/19
Costs	The project cost is estimated as $175,280.00
Expected Return on Investment	More than $50000.00 per year.
Risks	Some of the risks associated to the project are, · Schedule slippage · Emergence of disruptive technologies · Exceeding estimated budget or poor budget estimation · Lack of resources · Failing to meet the requirements of the project.

The scope of the project is limited to the design, development, and implementation of the proposed online booking system for the FastDrivers. Working on any other business process like marketing, accounting, HR, instructor management and acquisition etc. are out of the scope of the project.

The WBS or work breakdown structure for the project is given below. Based on the WBS, the detailed project schedule has been created.

WBS	Task Name
1	FastDrivers Information System Development Project
1.1	Project Initiation
1.1.1	Feasibility Study
1.1.2	Project Proposal Creation
1.1.3	Selection of Consultancy
1.1.4	Making Contract
1.1.5	Signing Project Initiation Document
1.2	System Analysis
1.2.1	Requirements Gathering
1.2.2	Requirements analysis
1.2.3	Creating requirements specification document
1.2.4	Signing System Requirement Specification Document
1.3	System Design
1.3.1	Creating architectural designs
1.3.2	Database design
1.3.3	Interface designs
1.3.4	Creating Design documents
1.3.5	Signing design documents.
1.4	System Development
1.4.1	Coding
1.4.2	Unit Testing
1.5	Testing
1.5.1	Integration Testing
1.5.2	System Testing
1.6	Implementation
1.6.1	System Implementation and Configuration
1.6.2	User Training
1.7	Project Closure
1.7.1	Submission of final report
1.7.2	Maintenance process

And the detailed project schedule with cost and resources is,

WBS	Task Name	Duration	Start	Finish	Predecessors	Resource Names	Cost
1	FastDrivers Information System Development Project	302 days	Tue 5/15/18	Wed 7/10/19			$175,280.00
1.1	Project Initiation	32 days	Tue 5/15/18	Wed 6/27/18			$25,600.00
1.1.1	Feasibility Study	7 days	Tue 5/15/18	Wed 5/23/18		Project Manager	$5,600.00
1.1.2	Project Proposal Creation	5 days	Thu 5/24/18	Wed 5/30/18	3	Project Manager	$4,000.00
1.1.3	Selection of Consultancy	14 days	Thu 5/31/18	Tue 6/19/18	4	Project Manager	$11,200.00
1.1.4	Making Contract	5 days	Wed 6/20/18	Tue 6/26/18	5	Project Manager	$4,000.00
1.1.5	Signing Project Initiation Document	1 day	Wed 6/27/18	Wed 6/27/18	6	Project Manager	$800.00
1.2	System Analysis	56 days	Thu 6/28/18	Thu 9/13/18			$42,600.00
1.2.1	Requirements Gathering	30 days	Thu 6/28/18	Wed 8/8/18	2	System Analyst	$22,800.00
1.2.2	Requirements analysis	20 days	Thu 8/9/18	Wed 9/5/18	9	System Analyst	$15,200.00
1.2.3	Creating requirements specification document	5 days	Thu 9/6/18	Wed 9/12/18	10	System Analyst	$3,800.00
1.2.4	Signing System Requirement Specification Document	1 day	Thu 9/13/18	Thu 9/13/18	11	Project Manager	$800.00
1.3	System Design	28 days	Fri 9/14/18	Tue 10/23/18			$14,800.00
1.3.1	Creating architectural designs	7 days	Fri 9/14/18	Mon 9/24/18	12	Designer	$2,800.00
1.3.2	Database design	7 days	Fri 9/14/18	Mon 9/24/18	12	Designer	$2,800.00
1.3.3	Interface designs	14 days	Tue 9/25/18	Fri 10/12/18	14,15	Designer	$5,600.00
1.3.4	Creating Design documents	5 days	Mon 10/15/18	Fri 10/19/18	16	Designer	$2,000.00
1.3.5	Signing design documents.	2 days	Mon 10/22/18	Tue 10/23/18	17	Project Manager	$1,600.00
1.4	System Development	100 days	Wed 10/24/18	Tue 3/12/19			$48,000.00
1.4.1	Coding	60 days	Wed 10/24/18	Tue 1/15/19	18	Developer	$28,800.00
1.4.2	Unit Testing	40 days	Wed 1/16/19	Tue 3/12/19	20	Developer	$19,200.00
1.5	Testing	37 days	Wed 3/13/19	Thu 5/2/19			$17,760.00
1.5.1	Integration Testing	30 days	Wed 3/13/19	Tue 4/23/19	21	Tester	$14,400.00
1.5.2	System Testing	7 days	Wed 4/24/19	Thu 5/2/19	23	Tester	$3,360.00
1.6	Implementation	19 days	Fri 5/3/19	Wed 5/29/19			$12,520.00
1.6.1	System Implementation and Configuration	15 days	Fri 5/3/19	Thu 5/23/19	22	Developer, IT Staff	$11,400.00
1.6.2	User Training	4 days	Fri 5/24/19	Wed 5/29/19	26	IT Staff	$1,120.00
1.7	Project Closure	30 days	Thu 5/30/19	Wed 7/10/19			$14,000.00
1.7.1	Submission of final report	7 days	Thu 5/30/19	Fri 6/7/19	25	Project Manager	$5,600.00
1.7.2	Maintenance process	30 days	Thu 5/30/19	Wed 7/10/19	25	IT Staff	$8,400.00

The major functions of the proposed information system are listed below (Bocij, et al., 2015).

• A customer must be able to register himself/herself by providing personal details and payment information like credit card details etc.
• A customer must search from the available driving lesson slots for booking, it must include details of the instructors assigned for each slot.
• A customer must be able to give his/her own preferences for the timing and place for a driving lesson. In that case the system must be able to find an instructor to match with the requirements of the customer.
• A customer must be able to make online payment using credit cards.
• A customer must be able to access his/her account with FastDrivers.
• A customer must be able to check past booking history, scheduled bookings etc. on his/her user account.
• A customer must be able to communicate with an instructor assigned to one of his/her scheduled booking via the proposed system.
• The system must be able to generate receipt of payments, confirmation of booking etc.
• The management must be able to generate various reports on the business transactions, customers, bookings etc.
• Instructors must be able to check their scheduled bookings and reply to customers.
• Instructors must be able to take customized booking made by the customers.
• A customer must be able to provide feedback on a lesson when it is completed.
• An instructor must be able to provide a feedback on a lesson when it is completed.
• The system must keep a record of the instructors’ profiles.
• An instructor must be able to access his/her profile.

For an information system, the TCO or Total Cost of Ownership includes the cost to purchase or develop the information system, cost to acquire required licenses, maintenance cost, and other ongoing costs like networking, salaries of the IT personnel, training etc. It must cover all costs associated to the lifetime of the proposed information system (Dennis, et al., 2014).

The calculations for the total cost of ownership for the proposed information system for the FastDrivers is given below.

FastDrivers
Project on Development of the Information System for Online Booking
Total Cost of Ownership
Items and Categories	Value ($)	Type	Priority	Timeline
Implementation Cost
System Development	$175,280.00	Investment	High	Immediate
Purchase equipments	$30,000.00	Investment	High	Immediate
Setting up hardware and networking infrastrucure	$5,000.00	Investment	High	Immediate
Other	$1,000.00	Expense	Low	Immediate
Documentation	$500.00	Investment	High	Immediate
Maintenance Cost
Service contracts	$5,000.00	Investment	High	Short term
Recalibration	$4,000.00	Investment	Medium	Medium Term
Other	$1,000.00	Expense	Low	Medium Term
Contingency Cost
System Downtime	$100,000.00	Expense	High	Long Term
Loss in sales	$500,000.00	Expense	High	Long Term
Replacement of equipments	$10,000.00	Expense	Medium	Long Term
Failure and wearout	$1,000.00	Expense	Medium	Long Term
Other	$1,000.00	Expense	Low	Long Term
Total Cost of Ownership	$833,780.00

Conclusion 

The report will help the FastDrivers to understand the cost and project analysis for the project on developing the proposed information system, total cost of ownership, system designs, interface designs etc. The interface designs will help to understand how the user interfaces will look like and how the users will interact with the system. The ERD will help to understand the underlying database model and the data flow diagrams will help to understand how data comes from external sources into the system and flows through various processes of the system.

References

Bocij, P., Greasley, A. & Hickie, S., 2015. Business Information Systems. s.l.:Pearson.

Carlos Coronel, S. M., 2018. Database Systems: Design, Implementation, & Management. s.l.:Cengage Learning.

Dennis, A., Wixom, B. H. & Roth, R. M., 2014. Systems Analysis and Design. NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Valacich, J. S., George, J. F. & Hoffer, J. A., 2015. Essentials of Systems Analysis and Design. NY: Pearson.